FOUR WHEEL CAMPER (FWC) THREAD!!

Fleet for sale in NoCal:

https://chico.craigslist.org/rvs/d/meadow-valley-four-wheel-pop-up-camper/7439384117.html

 

$28K Wow.

 

Yeah, the used market is batshit crazy right now. Checkout the Gear Exchange section of Wanderthewest.

 

I'm quite happy with my current setup. I enjoyed my FWC while I had it but it was too heavy for my truck.

 

how much would this go for new vs in a more "normal" market compared to current prices?

 

According to the FWC site a new Fleet with front dinette starts at 23,500. The one in the ad is a 2016. Given the current backlog at FWC it will probably sell.

 

yea, it has some upgrades, like the toilet, hot water shower, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if it does sell at that price, given the lead times on campers these days. Frankly, I would consider it pretty strongly if I wasn't looking at a career/school change in the near future.

 

Check out the 2nd Gen Tacomas for sell page. A 2018 Fleet on a 2014 Access Cab is listed. A lot of upgrades on both the truck and Fleet so very attractive set up. I’d jump on it if price was lower but suspect it will go for full asking price in this environment.

 

just looked through the first few pages and didn't see it, do you have a link?

 

Here you go:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2014-toyota-tacoma-w-2018-fwc-fleet-58k.755470/

Also found it listed on Craigslist in RV section for San Diego.

 

yeah, I saw that, including the inside shower option. Makes me wonder how practical an inside shower is on a Fleet sized camper. Not sure I want that much humidity inside.

First things first, need to sell my short bed to get a long bed truck before I make any offers. I’m finding out Tacoma access cabs are not easy to find and near impossible to find with a manual transmission.

 

We have the inside and outside shower and love it. As we live full time in ours, we use the inside one frequently. Have only used the outside one only occasionally as we seem to be in cool climates a lot. When showering inside we crack the door and run our rear fantastic fan to manage the condensation, works well.

We love our access cab with the manual, can’t imagine the auto with this weight, although I haven’t actually tested that out

 

probably not very practical, but I could see myself using it every couple of days, and just kind of hobo showering with it (using a soapy washcloth to wipe myself down with the warm water, and then towel drying). and the humidity would be expelled by the ceiling vent fan, and an open door for a few minutes. I think an indoor shower/toilet would really help my wife get behind the idea as well.

 

The shower works quite well/effective. Taking two showers (more liberally than “navy showers”) we use about 1/3 of the freshwater tank so you have to plan your water refill locations.

The shower and the toilet sold my wife on living in a Fleet

 

For the guys that keep there campers on full time what rear leaf packs are you running? I currently have stock packs with an add a leaf and Firestone airbags and its a good setup for taking the camper on and off. But im thinking of keeping the camper on full time and want to upgrade the leaf packs to handle the weight with out the bags. Im thinking either Deaver stage 3's or maybe the dobinson heavy duty leaf packs. Just curious what everyone is using and how they like them. Thanks

 

On my Tacoma I was running the Dakar "expedition" pack and kept the airbags installed when I changed over from the stock leafs.

On my Tundra (w/Granby) I'm running a custom leaf pack from Alcan. I weighed the truck empty, weighed it with the camper, sent them the numbers and they dialed it in perfectly. No regrets.

 

After

After being convinced by our FWC dealer that the extreme duty Dobinson springs (model # L59-176-R) would handle our weight, we went that direction - for 500 miles - here’s a picture of the result:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/taking-a-tacoma-around-the-world-need-advice.585792/page-27 Scroll down to #527

In the end the FWC dealer stepped up and credited us the cost and we went with custom springs from Deaver. It cost about $500 more than the Deavers but was totally worth it.

But realize that if you take the camper off and drive it the ride will be extremely rough, rougher than a one ton pickup from the 1970s. If I were you I’d plan on heavier duty springs and fine tune the ride with no more than 20 psi in air bags. That way if you take the camper off, the ride would be almost reasonable. Relying upon more than that could shift too much weight to directly over the axle with the potential of breaking it. At my previous work we actually broke an axle on a 1 ton truck used to haul logging equipment because we put too much air in the airbags

 

That's why I went with the custom Alcan's on my Tundra/Granby setup. Well worth the money and piece of mind.

 

Looking for opinions about putting a FWC on a 3rd Gen vs 2nd Gen. Just found a comparison of engine curves, post 607, here
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/enough-already-your-trucks-t-hp-and-rpm-explained.574429/page-31
and no surprise, the older 4.0 L engine has more low end torque than newer 3.5 L engine. I was about to buy a 2016 AC, MT thinking the higher hp was best but now thinking a 2015 AC, MT is better option to have higher low rpm torque when carrying 1100 lbs or more extra weight in the bed. Either case for me it will be a MT.

Who here has a 3rd Gen and how does it drive with the camper?

 

FWC told me airbags and load E tires should be fine for their swift model in my 3rd gen DCSB. I think they have an incentive to tell people minimal suspension upgrades since the thought of shelling out more upgrades for the truck is pretty tough to handle after the cost of the camper.

I ended up getting on the wait-list for a Ovrlnd camper shell (similar to the project m). I'm just not willing to be that far over the payload capacity.